


Always With You (Redux)

by akdaley



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Implied/Referenced Torture, Jedi Training, No Smut, Redemption, Sarcasm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2019-04-08 16:32:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14109462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akdaley/pseuds/akdaley
Summary: The ghostly energy of Luke Skywalker + his highly conflicted, angry and disturbed nephew, supreme leader Ben Solo are forced together by the mechanisms of the Force. Neither are happy about it, but try as they might to get out of it, at some point they're going to have to start talking...Edited and vastly expanded version of previous fic. Angst, dysfunctional love, conversations with dead people, depression, rage, compassion, kindness. It's all right here, folks.





	Always With You (Redux)

Ben Solo is kneeling on the floor, his father’s dice vanished from his hands. His mind is full of rage, humiliation and betrayal. He has failed to kill Skywalker. He is angry. Murderous, his mind is made of only darkness.

His soul isn’t there to save. He has made sure of that – anyone who looks at him might well think he is grieving, perhaps even desperate. They would only be fools. There is nothing left of him to feel grief.

And she has gone – that door has closed. The woman with whom he would have ruled the galaxy!

The look in her eyes as the doors slammed shut. He is a monster, and he is her enemy. Could it ever have been any other way? He was mad to imagine anything other than this.

Well, if he must, he will kill her.

He will kill it all, will do whatever it takes to ensure that all of this, the endless warfare, the endless strife, can  _end_ and the new order can take its place. One with him at the helm, free from the Sith, free from the Jedi…

‘Hey kid,’ a voice says suddenly, and he startles. Looks around, lightsaber raised. It sounded like the voice of Luke, but that cannot be so.

‘Yeah, I’m here,’ the voice says again.  ‘Are you okay?’

This time, as he looks around, he makes out a vague silhouette against the metal of the door. It  _looks_ like Luke as well as sounds like him.

He blinks twice, hard, hoping it is a visual illusion. It isn’t. The silhouette, if anything, only gets sharper.

‘Ben?’ it says.

Then, as abruptly as it came, it disappears. He is alone in the room. Swiftly he returns his thoughts to murder.

+

That night, as he lies on his bed, trying and failing to sleep – he admits, all right, that he doesn’t always sleep exactly soundly - he hears the voice again, more distinct this time.

‘What’s this about?’ the voice says, sounding distinctly annoyed.

Ben doesn’t answer. He doesn’t want to encourage it. It’s very late, and he is tired. He hasn’t been sleeping well since, you know. For a while.

‘Seriously,’ it says again. ‘Where am I supposed to be?’

He turns over, faces the wall. He isn’t going to answer it, whatever the fuck it is. Some Jedi mind-trick, something residual from Ben Solo. He isn’t interested. If you ignore these things, they tend to go away.

He’s always found that an excellent rule with things he doesn’t like. His family, his friends, his consciousness. Sooner or later, things you don’t like do have a habit of disappearing.

‘Leia?’ the voice says, and it’s very hard to pretend at this stage that it isn’t Luke. ‘Where are you?’

 _She’s not here,_  Ben thinks.  _You pig bastard._

Swearing at the voice cheers him up.  He thinks of several further choice epithets as he tries, and fails, to sleep.

+

The next morning, it is there when he wakes up. It is the first thing he hears, in fact.

‘You sleep badly,’ the voice says. ‘Can’t say I’m surprised.’  
  
_Go away_ , he thinks. He certainly isn’t going to talk to it. He hates the mornings with particular fervour, and he wouldn’t talk to anyone – not even a disembodied consciousness that sounds like his dead uncle. Especially not him.

‘You were talking in your sleep,’ the voice goes on. ‘You sounded unhappy.’

What the hell is this?

He gets up, determined to ignore it, and turns the shower on with vehemence. When he gets out, the room is mercifully silent, other than a vague fuzz of the Force at one its corners, some sort of light static signature that rests there.

He ignores it.

+

  
Unfortunately, the static signature – hard to explain, as if there were a corner of the room that is full of continual, low white noise that is easy to tune out but impossible to ever entirely ignore -  accompanies him everywhere he goes.  
  
It doesn’t  _talk_. It isn’t always in any obvious form. It’s just there – a watchful, odd energy. No one else notices it, and he certainly isn’t going to mention it to anyone. He just tries to blot it out, as best he can.

 

It’s probably some residual Jedi thing, he thinks. Some sad little throwback to the time he spent as a Padawan. He doesn’t know everything about Jedi death, especially not the way that Skywalker died. Maybe this always happens. They haunt the person they were nearest at time of death, or they haunt the person they perceive as their most mortal enemy.

 

Whatever, really. Surely at some point the fucker will have to disappear back into the fabric of the universe.

  
  
+

 

Sometimes, he gets pretty angry. He has a lot of rage in him. It’s easy to let it out. It feels good, briefly, to let it all burn out of him.

  
He goes to the training room and he kills the droids. Tortures them, smashes his saber through their bodies. Lets them fall, limp and struggling, and then forces them back into combat mode. Watches them fall again and again, as he hurts them. Mutilates them, cuts limbs, smashes eyes, noses. Does anything he can think of that is obscene and ugly.

  
It feels good.

 

It used to feel better before that fucking pig bastard ball of energy showed up.

 

Its not that it expresses any _judgement_ per se of this way of killing the droids. It doesn’t do anything. It’s just there, floating, amorphous, vague.

 It’s more that Ben knows that it can’t possibly approve. He must look stupid, must seem pathetic and out of control.

 

So, he gives it up. Lets them fall to the ground and where he might once have prolonged this, he just sighs and lets them be dead, slashed to pieces but not subsequently mutilated.

 

That _feeling_ comes then, as he knew it would. It’s bad this time. It’s a gnawing kind of emptiness in the absence of violence. It makes him want to scream. Or put his fist through something, which is exactly why he was here in the first place.

 

He feels the sting of tears in his eyes, the frisson of tension in his body. He’s coiled, full of energy about to burst.

  
The stupid bastard thing still doesn’t do anything. It just floats there, benevolent or malevolent, he doesn’t know which. Perhaps nothing at all.

 

In his head, he curses it every way he can think, in every language he knows. In the fresher later, he slams his fist so hard against the tiles that it draws blood.

 

+

Nights seem to be the worst. Once again, as he is lying down to sleep, he hears it. He’s nearly asleep, almost at the edge of it, trying very hard to let it wash over him, when -

‘I don’t get it,’ the voice says.

For fuck’s sake.

‘Why am I here?’ it says again. ‘This isn’t right…’

He still doesn’t answer.

‘I don’t want to be here.’

 _I don’t want you to be here either_ , he thinks.

‘I know you can hear me, kid,’ the voice goes on. ‘You’re doing a lousy job of pretending to sleep. You’re doing a lousy job of pretending to be all right too. For what it’s worth.’

He still doesn’t say anything back. He just  _refuses_.

The voice sighs. Ben turn his back to it and manages, eventually, to get to sleep.

  
+

The next day, he is training. He trains alone, invariably. There used to be people he trained with, but they have all either died or declined to train with him any further, so that’s that. He’s spent two years with the droids, other than actual combat against enemies. They do their job well enough.

He got through a full four hours this morning without hearing that voice.

Not that he’s thinking about it too much. He tries to dismiss it, as much as he can. He hopes it was some kind of temporary space sickness, like the hallucinatory condition they had recently on that planet…

Although, he has to admit, he’s pretty sure it isn’t really a sickness. He doesn’t  _feel_  sick. Just tired, angry and ill at ease.

 

Besides, that hallucinatory condition came with a side effect of vomiting up blood – which he absolutely isn’t doing.

It’s something else. Something that won’t be cured by a shot of anydite. He knows that really.

He moves his lightsaber towards the training dummy, poised to strike.

‘Your left foot is completely off again,’ the voice says, sharply. ‘That’s just sloppy.’

‘What?’ Ben says, too surprised and irritated not to reply to the voice that he is absolutely choosing to believe is only in his head.

‘Your left foot,’ the voice says, and this time he can make out a slightly sharper silhouette, a man slouched by the far wall. ‘What on earth are you doing?’

He looks down at his left foot, and is embarrassed to notice that the voice – perhaps his subconscious? –  was right. He is not in the right stance.

Hastily, he corrects it.

‘Yeah,’ the voice says. ‘You think you’d have got away with that in my Temple, or what? Who’s supposed to be training you here?’

‘I don’t need a teacher,’ he hisses.

Talking back to it is almost certainly a mistake. Well, not it. Him. He knows exactly whose voice it is, after all. He has known from the minute it started.

 ‘Yes you do,’ Luke says, and then he steps forward out of the shadow.

He isn’t substantial. He is definitely dead, something incorporeal. Ben can’t see through him, as such, but there’s a quality to his form that isn’t human.

‘You’re really out of practice,’ Luke says. His face is hard to read. It’s not clear if he’s smiling or scowling.

Ben doesn’t even bother running him through with his lightsaber this time. Clearly he isn’t  _really here_. This is some stupid Force distraction.

‘This is only wasting your time,’ he says.

 In the end, it’s quite good to be speaking to it. It’s better than lying awake, feeling the Force vibrations of a dead person in the corner of your room. He squares it off, looks tough.

‘Isn’t it clear that I’m not interested in listening to you any longer? You’re dead.’

‘Well…’ Luke demurs slightly, and there is almost a sardonic expression on his face. Where his face would be, if it were solid. ‘I thought I was. But apparently here I am, doomed to watch you make embarrassing training mistakes for all eternity.’

Ben resumes tearing the head of the training dummy off with his lightsaber. It falls with a pleasant thud.

‘I don’t make mistakes,’ he says.

‘Beg to differ.’

Luke, the thing that may be Luke, steps forward.

‘Watch,’ he says.

Then he mimes exactly what Ben has just done, the way he advanced, the way he cut the saber against the dummy’s neck.

Okay, it does look a bit clumsy when he does it – but he’s a  _ghost_. He’s a figment of someone’s imagination. Of course he’s clumsy.

‘I didn’t do it like that,’ he says.

‘Yes, you did.’ Luke resumes slouching against his wall. ‘It really was embarrassing. For you and for me.’

It seems pointless to argue, to have any sort of debate with this …  _thing_.

On the other hand, if he’s going insane and talking to himself, he’s already started now. He might as well go on. He makes his voice as sardonic and cold as possible.

‘What exactly should I have done differently?’

Now he’s quite sure that Luke is grinning. ‘Finally, you ask.’

‘Well?’

‘Where to start. For one thing, since when did you think it was a good idea to hold your lightsaber like that?’

‘Like what?’

‘Like it’s just a sword. Come on, Ben. Where do you put your upper two fingers?’

This is  _really_  old stuff.

‘I was holding it correctly. And my name’s Kylo Ren.’

‘No you absolutely weren’t,’ Luke says. ‘And no it absolutely isn’t. I don’t know what’s wrong with you. You’d think that now you’re what, the Supreme Leader, you’d know how to hold a lightsaber properly.’

‘I  _do_.’

‘Show me then. It’s not like I can go anywhere better.’

‘Why the fuck not? I’d prefer that you did.’

‘Yeah, you and me both… I’ve tried to leave a million times. I just keep coming back here. Back to wherever you are.’

‘Why? Who’s doing this?’

Luke sighs. ‘I don’t know, Ben. Not me, that’s for sure. I’m not working with the Resistance. I’m dead. I can’t even touch anything, much less reach out to anyone.’

‘I don’t want you here,’ he says. ‘I don’t want you anywhere. I’m glad you’re dead.’

‘Great,’ Luke says. ‘So go on, run me through with your lightsaber. The one you don’t even know how to hold right.’

‘Fine,’ Ben says, and he does actually raise his lightsaber, facing towards his uncle. He subtly checks his fingers, and they are definitely in the right position.

‘Made you look,’ Luke says, and he grins.

Ben does run him through with the saber then. He charges him, and cuts right through the ghostly, insubstantial son of a bitch.

Unfortunately, it has no effect at all.

 ‘This again?’ Luke says. ‘How many times are you going to do this?’

At which point, Ben chooses to resume ignoring him. Eventually, he fades back into the vague energy form that suits him best – still there, but no longer visibly, evidently, a human being.

  
+

The problem is, it’s actually quite hard to ignore the ghostly presence of your uncle, even when not in human form – if he is there every minute of the day.

Ben does his best with it. He continues his work as Supreme Leader, he tries to keep the mutinies down, keeps the battles running smoothly, but he refuses to make  _contact_  with the bastard thing, but it is still there. It doesn’t seem to be able to go more than a few metres away from him.

 

Mercifully, it doesn’t follow him to the ‘fresher. Or the bathroom. At nights, it hovers, lethargic, in the dark at the opposite end of the room. 

He never mentions it to anyone else either. He doesn’t have any friends to mention it to anyway, not in the First Order.

Something which, a few days later, it, the voice, goes as far as to point out.

He mostly talks at night, when Ben is lying there in the dark, trying to unwind his thoughts, slow down his mind, manage pain, get away from the commands and orders and training and focus, just briefly. Trying to get some fucking sleep, if he only he could.

Incredibly, Luke seems to see these times as the best for conversation.

‘You’re really lonely here,’ he says, thoughtfully, while Ben lies there, trying to meditate on sleep, to just get his mind to let go enough to sleep –

Sometimes he answers. It depends on his mood, on his level of sanity, of his level of willingness to accept he may well be _insane_.

‘Loneliness is a meaningless idea. Everyone is alone.’

‘Okay,’ Luke says. ‘Sure. But there’s alone and then there’s this. Are you really  _happy_ , Ben?’

‘What do you care?’

‘You think I don’t care?’

Ben just sighs. This whole thing with his dead uncle dogging his footsteps is getting extremely tiring.

‘I think Ben Solo is dead, and you miss him. You care about him, and you’re a fool, because he was a weak, stupid child.’

‘Yeah,’ Luke says. ‘Probably he was. But he was mine to take care of, and I failed him. Pretty badly. And now I see you here like this, and I can’t help thinking I’m failing him for a second time.’

He pauses. ‘Don’t run me through with another lightsaber, kid. Don’t go crazy. It’s not going to do a damn thing to get rid of me, and we both know that.’

Ben doesn’t bother to answer.

‘You know I can’t leave,’ Luke says. ‘I can’t even talk to anyone who isn’t you. I’ve tried, but they don’t hear me. It’s not like this situation is working out well for me either.’

‘Can’t you just connect to the Force?’ Ben says, irritably. ‘Surely if you’re dead, you can just… let go? Disappear? Fade into molecules?’

‘Tried it, doesn’t work. I just come back, right here. Right where you are.’

‘Well, I don’t want you here.’

‘I got that much.’

‘And stop talking to me at nights. I’m trying to sleep.’

Luke sighs audibly. ‘It’s easier at night. That’s why I do it. At nights I can see you much clearer.’

‘So try to un-see me.’

‘I can’t do that. Believe me, I would if I could… I really don’t want to look at you like this.’

‘Like what?’

‘So very unhappy.’

Ben has the retort that he isn’t at all unhappy on the tip of tongue, but somehow, he doesn’t quite manage to voice it after all. It’s better to just not engage with it.

He hardly sleeps that night, but then again – what’s new?

 

+

 

‘For god’s sake,’ Luke says, emerging again during a particularly difficult training session the following morning. ‘I know you didn’t sleep, but…’

‘Go away.’

‘Great retort. They teach you that at Sith school?’

‘I’m not a Sith,’ he hisses. He knows he shouldn’t rise to it, shouldn’t even talk to him. Sometimes though, it’s just too easy. He’s totally alone in the training room, with a locked door. No one is going to hear him.

‘Right,’ Luke says. ‘You’re not. Just a Force user who kills people. Heading up an evil army. You’re not a Sith.’

‘Evil’s a relative concept,’ Ben says. He moves the saber swiftly through the air, ignoring the discomfort he sometimes feels doing this move. He doesn’t care. Fuck but he doesn’t. ‘I don’t see this as evil.’

‘No?’ Luke says. His tone is very flat.

‘No.’

His uncle’s form during the daylight – when he emerges into one - is always so light, barely present. Not transparent, but something more like looking through a glass of water. A visible shape of a person, but not more.

‘Anyway. What do you  _want_?’ Ben snaps at him irritable. He’s really trying to get something here, a difficult Force move.

‘For my student to remember a single thing I taught him?’

‘I’m  _not_  your student.’

 

‘Ex-student, then. My ex-student non-Sith non-nephew.’

 

Ben runs him through with a lightsaber, out of sheer perversity. He knows it can’t hurt him. It’s just that it’s satisfying to do it anyway. Luke’s form only fades, briefly, before returning to its usual solidity.

  
Ben goes back to training, ignoring him altogether.

‘I seriously can’t take this,’ Luke says, after a few minutes have elapsed. ‘At least let me help you to train. Even if you use it for the wrong thing, it’s got to be better than just watching you make the same mistakes again and again.’

‘I don’t need anything from you.’

‘Oh, Ben.’ His uncle’s face manages, somehow, to show disappointment. He knows that look perfectly well. ‘You don’t even see the things you’re doing wrong.’

He puts down his saber and turns to face Luke full on. He feels that swell of anger again, rising up, uncontrollable.

‘I am not doing  _anything wrong_.’

‘You’ve totally forgotten how to open the form properly,’ Luke says. ‘What even was that?’

‘I’ve been perfectly well trained here,’ Ben says, his tone icy. ‘Better than by you.’

Luke only snorts.

He lets his irritation course through him.

‘I don’t understand what you expect,’ he says. ‘I’m not a Jedi. I don’t want to be one. I don’t want the Jedi order to exist. I’ve killed as many Jedi as I could find. Why would I want to remember your stupid, pathetic forms? I wasted enough years of my life with them.’

‘Because you’re doing them anyway,’ Luke says, his tone careful. ‘I’m having to watch you train here. Half of what you’re doing is stuff I taught you, but you’re messing a lot of it up.’

He really would very much like to kill him. He knows there must be a way to remove this – entity, this ghost mongrel – if only he could find it.

The heat he feels is positively vibrating through him. Nearby, a couple of shelves vibrate ominously. He wonders if he might be about to go into meltdown.

‘Don’t get so angry,’ Luke says, his tone gently chiding as if Ben is still his little nephew. ‘I’m just saying that you might want a hand with a few things. If you don’t have a teacher, you forget things.’

‘You have nothing that interests me. The Jedi were nothing. I regret the time I wasted with them.’

‘Right,’ Luke says. Ben has the distinct impression that his uncle is holding in his patience, and then suddenly, all at once, he seems to let it go.

‘You know what, kid?’ he says, and there is a flash of anger, a ripple in the Force that Ben can almost feel – his uncle’s signature stronger than it has ever been. ‘You should be interested. Because the way you’re working right now, the mistakes you’re making, someone is going to slit your throat one of these days.

‘You left it wide open more than once for an attack. No one is training you here. The way it looks to me, no one’s trained you for years, other than to do some of those nasty little tricks you like so much. You are going to  _die_  because of not being interested in what I have to say, and I’ll… ‘ Luke gathers his breath, or so it seems. ‘I’ll see you in hell when they do, you bastard. I am so done with all of this.’

Then, mercifully, his form does appear to slightly fade out somewhat, into a low hum of energy. Ben continues his training, and although it’s quiet, although he does what he wants, he can’t quite shake the feeling that he is missing something after all.

 

+

That night, Luke says nothing. His energy is there, solid and calm in the corner of the room. Ben can feel that he’s there, but he’s not choosing to speak tonight.

Fine, he thinks.  _Great._

He manages to sleep almost soundly, give or take the odd nightmare that leaves him frantically gasping for air. Give or time the odd sick feeling of despair, of guilt.  The usual things.

 

+

The following night, the same happens. Luke, once again, is there in the corner of the room, apparently sitting cross-legged, meditating, not speaking a word to Ben.

As always, his energy has followed him around through the day, like a ghostly mutt dog, but he hasn’t said anything, hasn’t materialised into any clear form. It’s been pleasant, not to see him.

That said, it’s not been the best day otherwise.

They’ve suffered heavy losses on one of the most important fronts. Hux has been out for blood about it, it’s been tedious and long.

His shoulder aches badly from training too, a very nasty hit by one of the training droids. It drew quite some blood, cut deep to the bone. He’d had to steady himself against it, use the Force to contain the injury, to get back to his quarters and perform basic healing on it. He trailed blood down the corridor, a thick red skein behind him.

It wasn’t the worst injury he’s ever had, but it was close. He was distracted, thinking about Hux and their strategy, about all kinds of things. Sometimes training gets boring, the same droids, the same routines. He took his eye off the important thing.

 He let his guard down. Now it hurts and he’s alone. He can finally just lie down and try to recover from the aching pain.

So the last thing he wants is his silent, brooding dead uncle in the corner as he lies in bed, trying to sleep, his shoulder so fucked up that it hurts to move.

The fucking thing. What the hell is he still doing here? Why is he here? Other than to make sarcastic cracks during training, to imply that he was ever some kind of great teacher.

‘For god’s sake,’ Ben says, in his uncle’s general direction.

‘Are you talking to me?’ His uncle’s voice, surprised, comes across stronger than it ever has. It is so unmistakably him. ‘You’ve never spoken to me first.’

‘You weren’t saying anything.’

‘I thought you didn’t want me to.’

‘I don’t’ Ben says, irritably. ‘But I don’t want you to just sit there either. I can see you’re there.’

‘I was trying to split my form again,’ Luke says. ‘Get out of this damn place. I just can’t do it. I don’t understand it.’

‘I don’t either.’

‘How’s your shoulder?’ Luke says, suddenly. ‘I saw the droid hit.’

It’s extremely painful, in truth. If he’d been anyone other than himself, it would have been a mortal wound.

‘Fine. The med-drones can fix it properly tomorrow.’

‘Really?’ Luke says. ‘Because it looked like quite a deep hit you took there.’

His voice manages, somehow, to be gentler than Ben has heard it in a long time, if ever.

‘I don’t want you to die,’ he says. ‘I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Nothing else to do here. Even if you’re a monster, even if you kill thousands of people, even if the Ben Solo I knew is never coming back. I really don’t want you to die.’

Ben feels something that is distinct from the pain of his shoulder. It’s a tiny moment of something.

‘My shoulder does hurt,’ he admits finally. ‘But it’s nothing I can’t handle.’

‘Yeah, I know that.’ Luke’s voice is more normal now. ‘Still, kid. Watch what you’re doing.’

 ‘Don’t call me that.’

‘Why not?’ Luke says. He sounds a little sad, a little distant. ‘I can’t see you as anything else.’

+

An hour later, as Ben lies there, still wide awake, shoulder still crippled with pain, thoughts racing, he manages to turn towards Luke, whose outline is still there, faint and steady.

He has no chance of sleeping. It hurts too much, even with meditation to suppress the pain, and he’s too wired from the day. He’s uncomfortably aware that he’s still bleeding out, leaving a stickiness on the sheet that feels unpleasant if he moves his position.

He doesn’t want to go to the medbay until the morning. He has to keep up appearances of a lack of ability to feel pain, make it all seem like a tedious formality of healing.

It’s something he’s known for – his ability to supress pain.

Fuck it.

‘Luke?’ he whispers. It is the first time he has said the other man’s name out loud.

‘What is it?’

‘Did you see what I did wrong, when I was fighting earlier? When the droid…’

‘Sure, kid.’ His uncle’s voice is very calm, and far too kind. It reminds Ben, bizarrely, of being much younger. ‘What do you think you did wrong?’

‘Lost focus.’

‘Right,’ Luke says. ‘You weren’t present in that fight. And you always had that problem with your left side swing, ever since you were younger. Remember?’

‘I thought I fixed it.’

‘You land heavy on your right,’ Luke says. ‘You don’t keep in form. You really fuck about with the sequence. And look, I’m getting pretty sick of being run through with a lightsaber, I don’t want you to charge me like a bull seeing a red rag but… sometimes you’re really lazy. You train with droids. You don’t have to think the same as you would if you had human opponents. I don’t think it helps you.’

Ben doesn’t say anything at all to that. He’s tired, and in pain. He doesn’t have the energy to fight this as well.

‘Just let me train with you, Ben,’ Luke continues. He sounds so very calm. ‘I really do think I can help you. I’m not asking you to rejoin Temple or be a Jedi. I know you’ll use what I teach you for your own things, and I might not agree with those things. But at least let me help you.’

He takes another breath, and Ben has the distinct impression that his uncle is calming himself down even further, preparing what to say.

‘You may disagree,’ he says, ‘but I do know you as a fighter. I don’t know what any of this is – but I do know that I don’t want to watch you throw away all your training and skill to the point where you get stabbed by training droids.’

In the dead of night, it’s easy to agree to things that the morning regrets.

‘Fine,’ Ben says. ‘You can offer me some brief advice.’

He pauses. ‘Also my name’s Kylo Ren.’

‘Not to me,’ Luke says. ‘Also, you’ll sleep better if you put a pillow under your shoulder. You should keep it in place.’

 

+

 The morning comes, bright and clear.

‘Right,’ Luke says, and it takes Ben back to being, what, ten? Nine? Some age at which he was doing exactly this, except it was more fun then. They begin this without ceremony, after he has received the healing from the droids that he needs – some of it, anyway.

 

 ‘Can you  _please_  keep your feet in the Sarana stance when you’re doing this?’ Luke says, as they try to run through an introductory training drill. ‘You keep slipping your foot out of it, then your weight’s unbalanced.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Check,’ Luke says. Which, Ben does, and sure enough…

‘Hmm, he says.

‘Why are you doing that?’

‘We don’t use the Sarana here. We don’t use the forms. It’s fine to just counter-balance.’

‘Okay,’ Luke says. ‘But you’re not counter balanced, are you?’ 

He adjusts into the right stance.

‘Great,’ Luke says. ‘You do remember. Can you swing left?’

He does, and it’s been quite a while since he’s been in this form. Even his right shoulder, embarrassingly, is a little bit stiff. He’s not done this for so long.

Luke doesn’t make an issue of it.

‘Okay,’ he says. ‘You’re not doing that as well as you should be. You know that. Do you remember the y’estdra?’

 ‘A Jedi foolishness. Pointless.’

‘Well,’ Luke says. ‘Sure, from your perspective. But if you just think about it as a strengthening exercise for your shoulders, don’t you think it might… help?’

‘Possibly,’ he says.

‘So…’

He does it. He has a good memory of this form, how it flows and shapes. Doing it takes him back to being fourteen, fifteen. Some happier time, when he took all this for granted, when it did it every day, and so often, when he was in such great Jedi shape.

It feels good, in a strange way, to perform it again.

‘Fine,’ Luke says, after he’s finished. ‘Although I’m not totally sure about why you’re moving your right arm like that. Is that what I taught you?’

‘No,’ he admits.

‘Can you redo it? It’s a small thing, but your shoulder’s really tight. You need to get it right.’

Ben sighs.

Then he does the form a few more times, correctly this time, and irritatingly enough, he can feel his shoulder clicking slightly into place. It hurts less than usual.

 

+

 

It’s not as bad as it could have been.

At least Luke is helpful. He isn’t difficult.

 He doesn’t make any sardonic cracks about the Dark Side, doesn’t try to appear to Ben’s immortal soul or anything like that, start going on about forgiveness and love and family. Never mentions Leia, the Resistance, Han, any of it. Doesn’t teach anything objectionably Jedi.

He just calmly corrects his posture, points out things he’s forgotten from training, watches and evaluates.

They don’t talk much. It’s all, ‘move to the left’ and ‘switch position’ and ‘if you put your weight on the back foot, you’ll never –‘

It’s actually quite weird, being trained again by Luke.

 He’s used to it, he can say that much, although he didn’t  _remember_  that he was used to it. Plus the more Luke mentions, the more Ben realises he  _is_  a bit out of form. Not that he’s not strong, not capable. He just hasn’t trained any of this stuff for a long time.

 

He isn’t sure it has any point, but at least it’s different.

‘I don’t know that one,’ Luke says at one point, during the first session, as Ben throws his lightsaber, hard, into the face of one of the training droids so it cuts straight through his eye. ‘Not sure about the eye thing.’

‘It’s efficient,’ he says, coolly.

‘Well, sure. Except then your saber’s at the other side of the room. And you have … eye stuff all over it.’

He knows Luke finds this sort of thing distasteful.

‘It doesn’t stain. It wouldn’t with a person either.’

‘Uff,’ Luke says. But then, the expected comment about the Dark Side never comes, no tearful plea to return to the Light, none of that. Whatever he is thinking, he keeps it to himself.

‘If you must. But you should be taking out two, at least, if you’re risking losing your lightsaber.’

‘I can pull it back with the Force.’

Which he does so, the saber flying back into his hand easily.

‘Great,’ Luke says. ‘Glad to know you’re using the Force for boomerang tricks. I’m very proud of the best student I ever had. But what if you can’t do that? I don’t think it’s wise to throw your weapon. It’s very showy, very … ‘ He gestures around the room. ‘Very all this. But wouldn’t it be better to keep hold of it?’

He irritates Ben tremendously.

‘Snoke considered it a useful possibility.’

‘Somewhat ironic he got run through with an abandoned saber, then,’ Luke says. ‘It’s better to know where they are. To keep them on hand.’

Ben ignore that.

‘What did you mean, anyway. Very what?’

‘Very Supreme Leader. Throwing a sword through someone’s eye.’

‘I  _am_  the Supreme Leader.’

‘Yeah,’ Luke says, almost tired. ‘Don’t I know it.’

‘You can’t stop me.’

‘Probably not,’ Luke says, calmly. ‘I’m dead and I can’t talk to anyone but you. I can’t do a thing. Watch on your right there -’

 

+

‘Was it useful?’ Luke says, as they finish the session.

Ben is tired, much more so than he usually would be after training. He feels slightly drained by it, by having been so relentlessly conditioned, tested, and pushed.

On the other hand, it’s good to have been conditioned. It’s been two years since he trained with another human being. It’s harder, the feedback is more negative, and it helps more.

‘Moderately,’ he says.

 

‘I think we should carry on,’ Luke says, neutrally. ‘You’re tired, after a three-hour training session. That isn’t normal. It shouldn’t be normal, for a person who’s training every day, who’s at peak physical strength.’

 

‘I’m not tired,’ Ben says, almost automatically.

 

‘You’re slouching. You look tired to me.’

 

‘I haven’t done those things in a long time.’

 

‘Sure,’ Luke says. ‘I saw that.’

 

He offers no further comment, no judgement on it.

 

‘Fine then,’ Ben says. ‘Since you’re there in the room anyway. I just don’t want to hear anything about the Jedi or Sith or any of it.’

 

Luke doesn’t answer. He just shrugs.

 

+++  


Some days later, the training has started to become almost normal. He adapts to Luke. It’s not that much of a stretch to include him in the training routine, as long as he keeps away from all mention of Jedi-related matters.

 

 ‘Can you really not remember this? We did this every day for  _ten years_.’ Luke says at one point, as he’s reminding him how to close a particular form that Ben has embarrassingly forgotten due to total lack of use. ‘Did you hit your head or something? Was I just an exceptionally bad teacher?’

 

They even talk a little more in training now. It isn’t  _friendly_ , but it’s bearable. Surprisingly so, in the circumstances.

‘Snoke dropped me hard on the floor a few times,’ Ben says casually. ‘Perhaps it was that.’

‘What?’

‘He trained me to resist pain. To do that required a certain amount of pain, naturally.’

‘He Force-dropped you to the floor?’ Luke’s tone is horrified, his ghostly form tense with displeasure.

‘Sure. It helped me resist pain.’

‘No wonder you killed him.’

Ben shakes his head. ‘It wasn’t for that reason.’

‘From what height?’ Luke says. He seems unduly fixated on the idea – it’s something Ben has never struggled with at all.

‘Hard to say. 20 feet? Not high. Why?’

‘What the…’ Luke’s tone takes on outrage now. ‘And you let him? How old were you?’

‘Is this relevant? I’d prefer to practice the eleventh form, if you’re too not busy being dead.’

‘How old?’

Ben thinks about it. ’23, I suppose. It was when I first started. After…’

‘Yeah,’ Luke says, and there is a slight warning in his tone. ‘Don’t go there. There are things I don’t want to talk about either.’

‘As you wish. Well, it was after that. He taught me how to control my response to pain. It was important.’

Luke’s voice is cool. ‘He dropped you from 20 feet, more than once. Did he crack your skull?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘And what else did he do?’

‘There can be no purpose to this discussion,’ Ben says. ‘I just want you to show me how to improve my side balance. I don’t need to talk about the methods Snoke used.’

So they do. He gets the closing to the form just right in the end. Luke looks, for the briefest flash, almost proud – before he returns to his usual sombre and overly-neutral position.

In a strange way, it feels peaceful to go back to this. There’s a right and a wrong way to practice Jedi forms, and although he wouldn’t admit it, it does come a lot easier when you practice them right.

 

+++  
  
‘I hate what Snoke did to you,’ Luke says that night. He sounds angry, which surprises Ben. ‘It was wrong.’

He is lying on the bed, shoes toed off, exhausted. The training schedule is taking a lot of out of him. He can practically feel his muscles groaning at the unwelcome strain, the toughness of Luke’s demand for accuracy.

‘It worked. It helped me.’

‘It cracked your skull.’

‘You’re blinded by love for the Ben Solo you knew. It’s his skull you imagine cracking. If you look at it dispassionately…’

‘I am looking at it dispassionately. Good trainers don’t let their students pick up the bad habits you’ve picked up here. They certainly don’t drop their students from 20 feet. They don’t teach them that way.’

‘I didn’t object to the method.’

‘Yes you did,’ Luke says. ‘I know you did. It must have hurt. You must have been so frightened. You were 23.’

‘I felt nothing but respect for the Supreme Leader.’

‘Oh, Ben.’

He doesn’t say anything else. The next day, they carry on training.

 

+

 

His left wrist is slightly, just slightly, defective, he knows. He’s been wondering when Luke is going to notice it.

Sure enough, about a week after they’ve started all this – he spots it. They are training with the sabre, and when he has to operate it on his left side, he always has to grit his teeth a little to master it. More so than he should.

‘Something up with your wrist?’ Luke says, eyeing it.

‘I damaged it a few years ago.’

‘How?’

‘It was nothing.’

‘Can I see it?’

‘If you wish.’

He holds out his wrist, and Luke, ghostly, floats over to it to look at it. There is a distorted lump of flesh there, misshapen slightly around the bone, with a burn mark above.

‘What the hell is that?’ Luke says. ‘Why didn’t you heal it? Looks like you left it broken for too long.’

This is exactly what did happen.

‘I couldn’t get to the med-bay on time. In the circumstances.’

‘Were you in battle?’

‘No, training.’

‘With Snoke, I suppose?’

‘Naturally.’

‘Did he break it on purpose?’ Luke asks, his tone too light. ‘Was this another pain resistance teaching?’

‘It broke during our training.’

‘And the burn mark? Is there any point asking about that?’

‘I made too much noise,’ Ben says, flatly. ‘It was my fault.’

Luke’s form flickers suddenly, and for a brief moment, he looks almost solid, as if he is alive and present.

But then he just shakes his head, and the illusion disappears.

‘Well,’ he says. ‘It looks like you might want to strengthen it, if you can.’

Ben doesn’t see fit to mention that it is actually ever so slightly broken, and it’s been that way for six years. It no longer matters to him. He’s overcome it.

+

 

He hasn’t felt angry in four days, which worries him in one way and makes it easier in another. He suspects the demands of training are burning the impulse out of him.

He wonders if Luke is doing it deliberately. He doesn’t remember it being this hard at Temple.

He just doesn’t feel the same appetite towards destruction. He hasn’t got the energy spare to start mutilating droid faces. Mostly, he just lets it run out in his sharp-tongued words to Hux, in belittling a few random officers here and there.

Even that doesn’t feel quite the same. He worries about what’s happening to him.

+

Sometimes they walk around the compound, Snoke’s old base that now belongs to Ben. Luke never really comments on anything they pass, although Ben is sure he has thoughts about it.

It’s only once that he says something. They’re standing by the place. It ripples with the Force, all broken.

‘What’ here?’ Luke says. ‘It feels…’

‘Bodies,’ Ben says.

‘Ah.’

He doesn’t specify that it’s the former Jedi and the various other people who’ve died here, all piled on top of each other. He assumes that’s obvious to Luke, just as it is to him. Dead Jedi leave traces.

They just tip the bodies there and leave them to rot. It’s efficient, he supposes, as graveyards go.

‘You don’t mind walking past people’s graves every day?’

‘I’ve put the past behind me. They’re just bodies.’

‘Sure.’ Luke’s form flickers in and out. ‘Surprising you don’t notice anything. With you being so force sensitive and all. Because I’m dead, and I can feel it like it’s a gaping hole in the universe.’

He shrugs. ‘I sense it. I just don’t care.’

‘Are all the former students here?’ Luke asks, in a dangerously conversational tone.

‘Yes, if you mean your former students.’

‘All except one,’ Luke says, looking at him.

‘Yes, well. I wasn’t as weak as they were.’

‘You know, you’ve become a pretty horrible person,’ Luke says, although his tone is phlegmatic rather than accusatory.

‘I know.’

Ben just shrugs. He really doesn’t care. They walk the rest of the way in silence, and remain so until the next morning’s training session.

+

 Luke trains him hard that morning. Really hard, much more so than usual. It’s insanely difficult, what he’s being asked to do.

He takes it, which surprises him. He didn’t think he’d have any interest in being taught again.

At some point, though, it always comes back to the Force – which is, naturally, the sticking point between them, given their different modi operandi.

‘You’re really going to have to close your eyes,’ Luke says at one point, after Ben has conclusively failed to intuitively apprehend an attack. ‘I don’t think you can sense all that well with them open anymore.’

It’s the _anymore_ that annoys him.

‘It’s not necessary,’ he says, keeping his tone cool.

He never closes his eyes. He doesn’t like the force overtaking him blind. It’s something he used to do naturally, when he was little – but which he’s been obliged, for certain reasons, to stop.

Luke just raises an eyebrow.

‘For someone inhabiting it every day, you seem pretty frightened of giving yourself over to the Force,’ he says, although he isn’t angry.

‘Fear has no role in this.’

‘No?’ Luke says. ‘So, what exactly _is_ stopping you?’

He grits his teeth. He’s an adult, he’s definitely stronger than these petty attempts at manipulation. And yet…

‘I can sense without it.’

 

‘Great,’ Luke says. ‘So, show me again how well you do that.’

 

‘I don’t need to do it.’

 

‘Right. So being able to apprehend your enemies’ approach, to anticipate it, has no use?’

 

It’s difficult to say _no_.

 

‘You’re misrepresenting its relevancy for your own purposes.’

 

‘Ben,’ Luke says, his tone very clear. ‘For heaven’s sake, just close your eyes. It’s going to bite you. How many millions of times have you done this?’

 

‘Lately, not very many.’

 

‘So an excellent time to start.’

 

He does it, sighing as if he’s bored. The darkness everywhere, nothing except the Force. The training droids gear into action at his voice command, and he senses how they move, willing it through the Force.

 

He can see himself too. He’s full of darkness, swirling. The Light is there too, solid, shaking, a tremulous presence.

 

He hates seeing like this. There’s so much darkness. It’s everywhere, clinging to him, on his skin, under his fingernails. It’s thick, matted onto him, like dried blood, dried gunk. He can’t get it out. He’ll never get it out.

 

The graves outside are screaming with it. He can feel that place, radiating its malevolence. Sharp, jagged edges.

  
It’s distressing and it’s difficult to see anything else. He feels sick. He really doesn’t like this.

 

He feels a sudden cut to him; realises a training droid is jabbing him. Opens his eyes with a snap, slices the bastard thing in two before it can do more damage.

 

There’s blood running down his side. He’s been cut on the upper arm, just a shallow cut. He’s gasping for air. He feels skinned.

 

‘Christ,’ Luke says. ‘No wonder you didn’t want to close your eyes. What the hell was that?’

 

He shakes his head. A storm of rage is brewing now, flies buzzing around him, gathering. He feels vulnerable, broken.

  
‘I don’t want to see,’ he says. ‘Don’t make me do that.’

 

‘Ah,’ Luke says. He looks, suddenly, much more solid. His face seems to display a trace of understanding. ‘You don’t like looking?’

 

He shakes his head, trying to regain some control.

 

‘Okay,’ Luke says, simply. ‘Okay then. Don’t close your eyes. We’ll have to find another way.’

 

‘I told you,’ he says. He almost spits the words out. ‘I can’t do it anymore, Un—’

 

He breaks off before he can finish the word, but Luke must have heard it anyway.

 

He’s shaking. It takes him a couple of minutes before he can start to train again. Luke must notice, but he doesn’t say a word.

 

+

 

After that, things seem to get somehow much better.  Luke seems less irritated and once or twice during training, he says something that almost sounds nice. He’s still tough, still pedantic and complicated, but he’s also being that little bit more human.

 

Ben isn’t used to it. He doesn’t need it, doesn’t want it. Although, when it happens he feels some annoying, jarring feeling in him that he doesn’t know the name for.

 

Like when they’re training to sense with eyes open and he still keeps getting it wrong and it’s clear that Luke is making sacrifices in deference to Ben’s problem, because he says,

 

‘You have to try to relax. You’re thinking about the things you can’t do, not the things you can. Maybe that’s half the problem.’

 

And this is true, and it’s helpful, and it’s also – unfortunately-  _kind_. So he feels this strange thing, some sort of welling up of an emotion.

 

In response to this thing, he finds something new in him, too.

 

‘I could try again,’ he says. ‘Maybe I should get past it.’

 

Luke shrugs, philosophically.

 

‘We can manage without. But if you want to try again, I’ll be here to help you.’

 

That feeling comes back. _Help_. Strange word, unwelcome, unneeded.

 

‘I’ll try,’ he says brusquely. ‘It may be useful. I don’t need your help. But maybe without a droid at first.’

 

 And he closes his eyes, and senses, and once again there’s so much darkness everywhere, all over him. He’s coated in the stuff, like thick tar. It’s disgusting, and mucinous and impossible to shake off –

 

‘Just breathe through it,’ Luke says, and his voice is calm and strong, and full of Light. ‘Look for the balance.’

 

So he does, and he tries to imagine Light, the balance to all of this. He hasn’t thought about light for years, and it surprises him to notice how much of it there still is.

The darkness seems to loosen, somehow, as if he’s stepping out of a restraint, or at least letting it a little looser.  He can see better now, can sense better. The room doesn’t look quite as frightening after all. He does remember how to do this. He still can do it.

 

He breathes it in. There is some sort of balance to the universe. He’s covered in filth, but it’s not the only thing there is. He can breathe.

  
When he opens his eyes, Luke’s form is so extraordinarily present that it is hard to believe he’s just a ghost.

 

‘Okay?’ he says, tone light.

 

Ben thinks about it. He feels winded, like he’s just run a sudden sprint. He also feels less like putting his fist through a wall than usual.

 

He nods.

 

‘Okay,’ he says.

 

+

 

 ‘So. Is your wrist  _broken_?’ Luke says, a couple of days later as they train.

 He’s watching Ben whirling through a lightsaber move that requires some extreme agility on his left side. He can overcome the pain, overcome the break, but there are times when he knows it still shows.

‘A little,’ Ben says. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Well?’ Luke says. ‘Aren’t you going to fix it? Doesn’t it hurt?’

‘Pain is meaningless. It’s something only weak people feel. I've overcome it through the Force. Pain is nothing to me.’

‘Ah,’ Luke says. ‘I see. Well, be that as it may, you can’t possibly continue training with me with a broken wrist. I’d prefer that we looked at how we can fix it.’

He hesitates, but not as much as he should.

‘I don’t think the med-drones know how. They don’t pick up on it as an injury.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t feel enough pain. I can move it normally.’

‘Almost normally.’

‘Yes, almost.’

‘Do you think…’ Luke trails off. He seems very solid in this moment, almost as if Ben could reach out to touch him. ‘Maybe if you experienced the pain of it, they might respond? If they’re pain-sensitive droids.’

‘I don’t know how to do that anymore.’

‘For fuck’s sake,’ Luke says, which is just astonishing. ‘Just feel into the injury. Let it in a bit. Can you really not do that?’

‘It’s completely unimportant,’ Ben says. ‘It hasn’t concerned me in six years. Why should it matter now?’

‘Six years?’ Luke says. ‘I cannot train you, cannot possibly train you, when you have a six year old broken bone that stops you from moving normally.’

‘It took you a while to notice. It is clearly not a major problem.’

‘No,’ Luke says. ‘It didn’t. I noticed it the minute I arrived here, the first time I watched you train. It’s just that it took me a while to ask you about it. It took me a while to work up to this conversation. That’s not the same thing.’

‘Why? I would have answered. It doesn’t concern me.’

‘It concerns me,’ Luke says. ‘I don’t understand why you have an unfixed broken wrist. I don’t understand how you can see that as advantageous to you. And frankly, I didn’t really want to hear your reasons. I suspected they might be things I couldn’t understand.’

‘There _are_ things you don’t –‘

‘Ben,’ Luke says, and his tone is firm and kind. ‘Please fix your wrist. I think it will help you if you do.’

He does  _sort of_  feel like arguing about it. But on the other hand, it’s probably not worth it. He can see the point Luke is making. He can see that the best is just to show him that it’s unfixable, because he’s trained too well to overcome the pain.

So they go to the medbay and Ben sits there, letting the droids scan him. As ever, they fuss around doing nothing, not noticing his wrist. They sew up a tiny cut, something irrelevant. They clean the lightsaber gash on his face, test his shoulder where he was cut – flex it, whirr with their industry.

They graze by the wrist without even picking up a trace of a problem.

‘They can’t sense it,’ he says. ‘They never do.’

Luke says, ‘Try. Imagine it’s just happened.’

‘It was a long time ago.’

‘I know that. Try to remember what it was like to be there. However it happened. There must have been initial pain.’

He does try, but he can’t access the memory.

‘Try to listen for the sound of the bone cracking,’ Luke says.

He manages that. He can actually remember the _noise_. Just not the feelings surrounding it.

There is a tingle of pain there. He grits his teeth.

‘Try to focus on it,’ Luke says. ‘I know it’s not fun. But you need to fix your wrist now.’

So he does focus on it, obsessively, exhaustively, tracing that pain down and around in his fingers, his arm, the join of the bone. It’s slow to come. It takes one spit of pain, and then another, and then another, and then the first week of agony, and the second, and third, on and on, until it gets to now, six years later.

It’s slow, and it hurts.

At some point, he screams. Six years of pain are flooding through him. It’s never really healed, it’s never really set. It’s always been slightly broken, twisted, mis-formed. He’s had to keep using it, over and over. It’s never been okay, not in six years.

Of course it hurts.

Luke’s there, solidly present, unreasonably benevolent.

‘It’s all right,’ he says. ‘They’re going to fix it now. Look at me, I’m here.’

He does look at him. He can almost make out Luke’s exact face, the lines of it, the things he remembers from his childhood.

He’s smiling. He looks like he’s okay.

Ben tries to hold onto that. Bizarrely, it helps. He thought he hated Luke. Perhaps he does, just not in quite the way he thought he did. In some other way.

It really,  _really_  hurts. It’s a supernova of pain. All of it, all at once. He wonders if he might be dying. He thinks he might pass out. He’s seeing stars, his vision is clouding over with them. He’s not able to keep going.

And then, as the droid works, buzzes urgently, they shoot him with something, some kind of pain suppressant – which he doesn’t like because he doesn’t need them – and then…

Then he comes to, and for the first time in six years it doesn’t hurt.

 

+

‘You should rest it,’ Luke says, afterwards, as they move towards the training room. ‘It needs to set properly.’

‘It’s fine. I feel fine.’

He actually feels a bit dizzy. The pain medications were very strong, and he’s not used to them. He can feel them circulating in his system, fogging him over.

‘No,’ Luke says. ‘Sit down. No training. Sit.’

He sits on the floor of the training room, cross-legged. His wrist doesn’t hurt, but it feels strange. He feels strange.

Luke keeps his voice steady. ‘Are you going to attack me if I suggest meditating?’

‘I meditate.’

‘Yeah,’ Luke says. ‘Okay. Do you think you might be able to meditate now on something other than pain suppression? Since that’s clearly all you’ve been doing for six years.’

‘That’s not all I did.’

Luke gives him a look. ‘It was a large part of it. How much control did it take to hold all that under wraps for so long?’

‘It was a part of my practice,’ he admits.

‘So, would you be okay with trying another part?'

‘You don’t have to help me,’ Ben says.

 It’s so weird to not have his wrist broken. He’s aware that he has a lot of energy surplus. He feels so strange. He isn’t having to focus at all on keeping it under control. He can just  _move_.

‘Someone ought to,’ Luke says, rather darkly. ‘Close your eyes. You know this one. I won’t make you sense, if you don’t want to do it. If you’re not ready.’

It’s weird, but he actually doesn’t mind following his orders.  Maybe it’s the drugs, their after-effect. He feels strangely absent from himself.

‘It’s okay,’ he says, feeling that it really is. ‘I think I can handle it.’

‘Clear your mind,’ Luke says. ‘Feel the force around you.’

He does.  _Really_  he does. It’s not that bad this time. He can breathe a bit better. There’s still all the dark stuff, but it’s not the same. He’s got some distance from it.

‘Deep and clear, strong and powerful,’ Luke says, and Ben really knows this one.

‘Ocean, land and sky,’ he repeats back, the mantra he’s known his whole life. ‘The earth and the air and the things between them.’

Being told what to do, being a Padawan again. It’s actually almost relaxing.  It’s not like anyone knows about it. In a way, all of this is only happening in his head. No one else can see Luke, nor hear him.

‘Focus,’ Luke says. ‘Tell me what you see.’

He does.

‘Darkness,’ he says. ‘Light.’

‘And?’

‘Balance.’

‘Step into the balance,’ Luke says. ‘Hold onto it.’

He steps, without even thinking about it, and realises he’s standing towards the Light, close to his uncle. He’s present in feelings of contentment, ease, and release from pain.  He can see Luke very clearly here, because they’re both in spirit.

He remembers this from so long ago. It’s nothing something Snoke ever did. He wouldn’t have wanted Kylo Ren to stand with him, to see him in this way. It’s too intimate, too raw.

Luke’s spirit, on the other hand, seems to be welcoming. He feels a certain benevolence towards him. He lets it in, and even – just a fraction – returns it.    
  
Luke’s surprise gives way to pleasure. His benevolence increases, as if he is reaching out a hand to Ben, to put on his shoulder, to greet him.

Within the force, it feels exactly as if they are smiling at each other.

It’s all fine. He’s still the supreme leader. Later, he'll go out and be Kylo Ren.  
  
Everything in good time.

 

+

That night, he’s lying there in bed and he realises that he isn’t tense. It doesn’t feel the same.

He moves his wrist, and there’s no control with the Force required to keep the pain at bay. There’s no issue with it. It’s just fixed. Weakened, out of condition, but not broken.

It feels  _so good_.

  
He had no idea how much pain he had been in, he was so detached from it. His whole body feels like it’s been flooded with endorphins.  He is not crippled, not maimed, not burnt or bruised or broken. He’s whole.

He sinks into the mattress, and he realises that he can sleep after all.

+

 

The next day, in training, he finds that it’s easier. Of course, it’s to be expected. He just hadn’t factored in exactly _how much_ easier it would be. He moves to fight, and finds that instinctively, he operates differently. He balances his weight much more evenly.

Luke seems cheerful too, although he offers no comment on it.

‘Looks good,’ he says, simply. ‘No wonder you were in such a mess before.’

Ben finishes a difficult form, lets his mind clear to a single point of being. He inhabits the Force, lets it take him over.

‘I wasn’t in a mess,’ he says, although he knows the hostility in his voice isn’t as much as it should be.

‘All right,’ Luke says. ‘You weren’t. But whatever it was, it’s clearly better now.’

+

Even the mornings are easier. He wakes up and he doesn’t feel like he’s about to go out and murder someone. He isn’t grinding his teeth in the night, which also seems to ease his general sleep and contentment.

It’s been two weeks since he started training with Luke. He’s in considerably less pain, although he aches and he knows that he has a lot to make up for, training wise. It seems to be going surprisingly well.

‘Hi Luke,’ he says, to the shadowy amorphous thing that’s always there. He doesn’t normally speak to him in the mornings, but this morning, he feels cheerful enough to risk it.

‘Hi,’ his uncle responds. ‘You slept better.’

‘I slept really well,’ he says, and it’s true.

‘Not having broken bones must be good for you.’

He dares to quirk a smile, something he hardly ever does. ‘I suppose.’

‘Nice smile,’ Luke says, and he immediately returns to a frown. ‘So, what’s on the agenda for today?’

‘We’re selecting the weaponry for the new ships,’ Ben says. ‘Strategy meeting. Hux is thinking about chemical weaponry alongside standard fire. Would be efficient on low-lying planets if we chem-bombed as standard.’

‘Hmm,’ Luke says.

‘Don’t.’

‘Kid, I’m not saying a word.’

‘You don’t have to. I know what your hmm means.’

‘Do what you think best,’ Luke says. ‘If it’s efficient strategy to use chem-bombs, and efficiency is your goal…’

‘I’ll do as I see fit,’ Ben says, rather haughty. He’s already standing up, dressing and feeling ready.

‘I don’t doubt it,’ his uncle says. ‘You’ve been doing as you see fit since you were three years old and you force levitated into the top cupboard so you could get the stuff you wanted.’

‘I didn’t do that,’ Ben says, surprised. ‘Did I?’

‘Sure. I had to levitate you down,’ Luke says. ‘You were looking for something sweet, I guess. You force climbed like a spider monkey.’

‘I don’t remember. Was I severely punished?’

‘We loved you more than anyone in the galaxy,’ Luke says, light voice. ‘You were a little kid. You don’t severely punish people you love for that kind of thing. We just started putting stuff in other cupboards and let you levitate something else instead that was safer.’

‘Oh,’ Ben says.

He feels that thing again.

He does go to the meeting about the weaponry, but in the end, he doesn’t vote for the chem-bombs. It just doesn’t seem very elegant, somehow. He’s not in the mood for a change like that.

In the corner, as always, Luke is there – a silent, radiating presence.

+

 ‘Decided against the bombing, huh?’ Luke says, in training later. He’s helping Ben to strengthen his wrist, putting increments of pressure on it, flexing it.

‘I think standard fire is adequate.’

‘Right,’ Luke says. He looks as if he might be quirking a smile, but he’s keeping it just about hidden.

‘It doesn’t change anything,’ Ben says. He pushes his wrist slightly too hard, and it aches suddenly, a sharp gnawing feeling.

‘I know,’ Luke says. ‘You’re the supreme leader. You don’t have to explain your decisions to me.’

‘I just don’t think we need to presume that annihilation is necessary in every case.’

‘Not in every case,’ Luke says. ‘All right. Can you flex a bit to the side there?’

He knows that his uncle thinks he’s turning. Of course he knows that. Well, let him believe that if he like. The decision was strategic, and once he’s fully returned to form, he’ll find a way to exorcise Luke.

+

Sometimes, he still gets really angry. It’s less than before, but it does still happen.

Like when Hux tells him that he hasn’t competently led the latest campaign. He hates that. Hux is still droning on about the chem-bombing, the necessity of it, the functionality of it. He’s already said no.

In training he would have usually started throwing stuff around with the Force, letting swords slide into his enemies, running off his excess energy, smashing and burning.

 However, he knows there are other ways. He has to try to be the best, not the worst, version of himself. Or else, what’s the point?

So, instead, he just channels it all into moving faster, sharper, and cleaner.

‘Great,’ Luke says, soothingly at the side. ‘Good focus.’

He moves so fast he feels that he’s a blur of motion. The force lets him lift up, stronger, welcomes him, lets him move freely.

‘Very neat,’ Luke says, and it’s just like being back at Temple before everything got so….

His sword cuts through the droid very, very cleanly.

‘Fine,’ Luke says. ‘Activate the other three.’

He does it, and they charge at him. It’s tough, keeping balance against three, but on the other hand, he is Ben Solo, it’s within his limits, and now his wrist works properly, it’s actually quite a lot  _easier_  -

‘Hard cut,’ Luke says. Ben cuts hard.

‘Excellent,’ Luke says. It  _is_ excellent. He knows that. He is absolutely performing this task excellently.

The three droids fall so smoothly. He’s angry, and he’s in control.

‘Good,’ Luke concludes. ‘Much better than throwing stuff like a maniac. Much more useful. Can you put that focus into your work more often? I’ve missed it.’

‘I’ve always been focused,’ he says. He’s breathing hard. It was still tough.

‘Sure,’ Luke says. He never seems to want to argue these days. He just lets Ben get on with being himself.

‘Let’s meditate now,’ Luke says. ‘How about the Harathka?’

‘Fine,’ Ben says. He crosses his legs almost automatically, sits in position. It’s actually… what the fuck is wrong with him, it’s actually quite  _nice_. This training. It’s peaceful. It’s helping him. It’s insane, but so what? Isn’t his whole life insane?

 

The blood rush is there. He’s angry, he feels it. It’s just not a feeling that he can’t handle.

In fact, he’s feeling in an almost ebullient mood. He feels more alive. He’s less careful.

‘Thanks, by the way,’ he says to Luke.  ‘I guess I did need a refresher on some stuff. The forms.’

Luke doesn’t answer that. He just reaches out his hand, and although it passes through, it’s almost like he’s touching Ben’s shoulder. Almost.

 

+

He is still the supreme leader, of course. He meets Hux, commands, orders, threatens, cajoles, liaises, and does all kinds of things that are hateful, frightening, and dark.

It’s just that he has this other part of his life, temporarily, in which he’s training with Luke Skywalker.

It doesn’t mean anything. It’s only ultimately helping him to become the person he was meant to be. He’s using Luke to get stronger. That’s all this.

+

One morning, he opens their training with bowing to Luke, completely automatic as if he were still his Padawan. Luke blinks.

‘Huh,’ he says.

Ben catches himself. ‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘Force of habit.’

‘You don’t have to bow,’ Luke says. ‘I’m not your master.’

'No,' he agrees. 'I just... it's familiar. I got used to it.'

Luke smiles, and it's very kind. Not mocking. Just kind. 'So you haven't forgotten everything after all?'

'No,' he says. 'I didn't forget. I just didn't want to use it.'

'Okay,' Luke says. 'You feel like remembering some more stuff?'

'Like?'

'Let's levitate some stuff,' he says.

'Really?' His face is quizzical. 'I'm not nine. I'm not five.'

'No, but you know what? Isn't it just kind of fun?'

'What?'

'Fun,' Luke repeats. 'Making stuff float.'

'I don't know.'

'I miss it,' he says. 'I can't do anything. I can only watch you. If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to watch some things floating in mid-air.'

'Well, fine...'  
  
He lifts up a few random objects. They sit there, floating calmly.

'Is that really as much as you can do?'

'No,' he says. He lifts up a couple more, a training rack, a droid that's deactivated. It is actually quite fun, he thinks. In some odd way.

'Can you spin them around?' Luke asks.

'I suppose...'

He does it, setting them all off twirling beautifully.

His hand moves through the form so easily. He can really do anything he chooses. He dips the training droid low, as if it were dancing, or fighting. Lets it spin.

'Nice,' Luke says, and he does seem to be enjoying it.

Ben realises he's enjoying it too. It's just some stupid thing.

He moves a saber around then, letting it spin in midair, rising and falling, round and round, its blade glisteing bright. He smiles.

'I wish we'd had more fun,' Luke says. 'I wish I'd had more fun.'

‘Some stuff was fun,’ Ben says. ‘The … s’ratha, the echo.’

Luke laughs, and it’s a sound that Ben hasn’t heard for years.

‘I shouldn’t have taught you that,’ he says. ‘Not when you were that age.’

‘Well,’ Ben says. He lets the saber fall neatly back into his hand, sets the droids down. ‘I really liked it.’

 ‘But you never do it now.’

‘Why would I do it now? It’s just a silly trick.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t think I remember how.’

‘Lucky you’ve got a teacher then.’

‘Seriously?’

Luke just shrugs. ‘I’m dead. I don’t care that much.’

‘Okay,’ Ben says. Why not, after all?  
  
He claps his hands, and lets the Force echo through the sound vibration, sends it spinning outwards – and hears a resounding clap back from several nearby objects, including two swords that clap together in a rather ominous way, spearing at each other. One of them ends up spinning forward in mid-flight, almost landing on him.

‘Oops,’ he says, dodging it. ‘I forgot it did that with swords.’

Luke laughs.

He lifts the swords back casually, so they slot neatly into place. Clicks his fingers, curious what will click back at him.

One of the training droids clicks its own fingers, as if in harmony.

He laughs, unexpectedly amused. Clicks his fingers back at it, in a fast rhythm. The droid clicks back like it’s about to launch into a musical performance. He smiles, and it’s quite weird, because he doesn’t actually  _smile_  that much. It’s not one of his things.

It feels quite nice.

Luke’s smiling too. ‘You’re much more restrained with it than you were when you were seven,’ he says.

‘Was it awful?’

‘Yeah,’ Luke says. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking. You echoed everything. I never want to hear some of those sounds again.’

‘I don’t remember it that well. Just that it was fun.’

Luke’s still smiling, lost in the memory. ‘Your parents nearly went mad.’

With a resounding thud, the dummy falls down, its fingers spread-eagled skyward

Ben walks out of the training room and straight into being Kylo Ren as fast as possible.

+

 

He wakes up that night in absolute terror. It’s been a while since he’s had one of those dreams.

‘I’m here,’ Luke says. He’s already moving towards him. ‘Sit up, kiddo. C’mon.’

He does sit up, gasping for air.

‘It’s over now,’ Luke says. ‘All over. Don’t worry, just a stupid dream. Just your brain’s output of random nonsense.’

‘Not,’ Ben says, still gasping slightly. ‘Real. Totally real.’

‘Hey now,’ Luke says, and his voice is just as kind as it used to be when Ben was a little kid. ‘I’ve been here the whole time. You were just asleep and dreaming.’

‘Snoke,’ he says. ‘I – I can’t – I can’t breathe. I can’t, Uncle, I can’t -’

He begins, rapidly, to hyperventilate. He’s had this before too.

‘Shush,’ Luke says. ‘Just take the air you need. There’s a lot of it there for you, whenever you’re ready.’

‘I can’t, can’t –‘

‘Sure you can,’ Luke says. ‘You can do anything you want. Just breathe a bit of air in. It’ll help. All this air, sure you can take just a bit of it. C’mon, you know how much I love breathing exercises. Let’s do one together, all right? Deep in-breath?’

He manages, just, to breathe in. It does help.

‘You’re doing so well,’ Luke says. ‘Deep outbreath.’

‘Snoke,’ Ben manages to gasp out. ‘Alive, still alive. Have to -’

‘No way.’ Luke sounds so reassuringly solid, even if he is a ghost.  ‘That old weirdo’s as dead as dead. From what I heard, you cut him in half with a lightsaber. There’s not much coming back from that.’

‘No, I have to –‘

‘Keep breathing,’ Luke says. He puts what would be an arm around Ben’s shoulders, and he can almost feel it – some sort of ghostly touch, not warmth – certainly not that – but also not cold. Not unkindness.

‘That’s right,’ he says. ‘You’re doing it all just right. Keep breathing like you are. We’ve got loads of time.’

He is starting to feel more normal. His heart is still racing, his skin sick with sweat, but he can breathe. He’s steadying a bit, but he’s still on edge. His uncle’s arm is around him, but it’s not warm, it can’t be, because he’s –

 ‘You’re okay,’ Luke says to him. ‘Come on, you’re okay. Shush now. All okay.’

‘Uncle,’ he says.

They don’t talk any more after that. Ben just lies there, his breathing evening out, until he eventually falls asleep. As he sleeps, he feels like he’s surrounded by light, encasing him in a protective bubble. He sleeps pretty well.

 

+

 

The next morning, they don’t talk about it. He just goes to work, as usual, managing the campaign, with that ghostly energy floating dimly in the corner.

And during training, Luke doesn’t even comment on it. He just does what he always does, which is to watch and comment on missteps.

‘You’re getting so much better,’ he says. ‘You’ve stopped making all those stupid mistakes. You're almost as good as when you were eleven.’

Ben doesn’t even bother to feel angry about it. He just smiles.

‘I wasn’t as strong when I was eleven.’

‘No,’ Luke says. ‘But you were better trained.’

‘Maybe.’ Ben throws a saber, and his wrist doesn’t even twinge. ‘I think two years working alone wasn’t necessarily that helpful.’

‘Seven years here wasn’t necessarily that helpful,’ Luke says, but he doesn’t sound angry, so Ben doesn’t have anything to respond to. ‘How’s your wrist?’

‘Less tight.’

‘Ben…’ his uncle’s voice trails off as if he is about to say something bad. ‘Why didn’t you fix it straight away? Why didn’t you have proper treatment?’

‘It wasn’t that easy to treat.’

‘But it should have been,’ Luke says. ‘If someone breaks a bone in training, okay. It happens. I’m not asking, I’m not even going to ask you a single thing about why you  _let_ someone do it to you. If that’s the way you like being taught, that’s okay. But after a break like that, you get treatment, right away. It couldn’t possibly heal on its own. Even at Temple…’

‘I couldn’t leave,’ Ben says flatly. He doesn’t really feel like fighting. ‘I was in a Force hold. The whole point was to overcome the pain of it.’

‘Ah,’ Luke says. ‘For how long were you in a Force hold with a broken wrist?’

‘Two days. Give or take. Until I could learn to work around it.’

Luke seems, insubstantial as he is, to be gritting his teeth.

‘And that’s normal, is it?’

‘Well, it worked. I survived a hit from the bowcaster that would have killed anyone else. It helped me to overcome pain.’

‘And the burnt skin?’

‘It was nothing. I told you. I made noise.’

‘But it was still broken,’ Luke says. ‘What, six years later?’

‘It was a reminder of my ability to overcome pain.’

‘Oh kid,’ Luke says, softly. ‘It wasn’t. It really wasn’t. It was just a broken wrist that nobody fixed for you.’

  
+

They keep going, and his whole life seems to be split into two entirely disconnected parts.

Nowadays, he and Luke often sense with the Force, and he’s started – amazingly – to be able to do it with his eyes open again. He’d forgotten what it felt like.

The first time he does it, he actually let out a gasp of surprise.

He’d forgotten the way it can be, to see the physical and immaterial world together, to see objects as both themselves and bound by the Force, to see himself in that same way. He’s still covered in Darkness, it’s still everywhere, unpleasant and thick – but it’s not all that he is. It’s not the only thing in the galaxy.

He still doesn’t like it, it’s still extremely difficult. It’s just that now, at least, he can look around and see more of the world than just himself.

Luke almost laughs, when he sees that Ben had got it.

‘Pretty great, huh?’ he says.

‘Yeah,’ Ben answers, unable to think of a retort that wasn’t honest. It was great.

‘Shame you forgot.’

‘I don’t think I forgot,’ he says. He looks around, keeping the Force and his physicality in perfect balance. The world like this is so incredibly beautiful. Shifting, timeless, bound by time. It’s worth his whole life, to be able to see things like this again.

‘I just didn’t like seeing the things I saw.’

‘I suppose there’s no point asking why you didn’t like them?’

‘Don’t,’ he says. Abruptly, jarringly, he loses the focus. The material world blinks back in, solid and present. The vision is gone.

He looks at Luke’s spectral form.

‘Just don’t,’ he says.

Luke just looks at him. Doesn’t say anything but seems to invite further comment.

‘I don’t want to discuss it.’

‘Yeah,’ Luke says. ‘That I get. But at some point you know, I think we might have to.’

‘What is it that you expect me to say? That I’m, what, sorry? I have no regrets. I feel no sorrow.’

‘But you couldn’t bear to see yourself. You’d rather never shut your eyes, never see anything, than look at yourself.’

‘I can bear it,’ he says, and he’s starting to feel that rising anger, frustration, rage. ‘I can bear it fine.’

Luke doesn’t answer that at all.

+

 

A few days later, he wakes up from another nightmare. It’s always the same one. It’s always Snoke, in his head, telling him to do things that he can’t stop doing.

He wakes up and Luke’s there, again. He doesn’t panic as much now. It’s easier to let the thoughts go.

But this time, as he breathes in and out, lets it pass, Luke does talk about it.

  
 ‘You have dreams that bad a lot?’ he says.

‘Sometimes.’

‘What do you normally do about them?’

‘Nothing. Wait until morning.’

‘Alone?’

‘How else?’

‘Ben…’ Luke’s voice is soft. ‘You can’t seriously plan to live like this indefinitely.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘You’re not fine. You’re waking up in blind panic, screaming in the middle of the night, about the man you say dropped you from heights, burnt your skin, cut you open. All of which you say didn’t bother you at all.’

‘It didn’t.’

‘Yes, it did.’

‘How would you know?’

‘I know you,’ Luke says simply.

‘You knew Ben Solo.’

‘Also. But I know you, too. Whoever you are. I’ve been trailing you around here for weeks now. I don’t think you’re fine.’

He breathes steadily, calmly.

‘Is this going to turn into the big talk? Where you tell me to come back to the Light, leave all this behind?’

‘No,’ Luke says, simply. ‘You’ve chosen what you’ve chosen. I just want you to know that good teachers don’t drop their students from heights. Or burn them, or torture them. They don’t leave them with a broken wrist that never heals. They don’t let them perform stupid and dangerous tricks that can get them killed. They don’t make them wake up in the night in terror. That’s all. I just want you to know.’

‘They don’t try to kill them, either,’ Ben says.

‘No.’ Luke’s voice is quiet. ‘They don’t do that either. But you know that isn’t what happened. Not really.’

‘I woke up with you holding a saber above my head.’

‘And then I put it down.’

‘He said that you’d do it. Snoke, he warned me it was coming, that you’d try to destroy me, destroy my power.’

Luke snorts. ‘I’ll bet.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘How long had he been in your head?’ Luke asks. ‘For how long had he been whispering to you in the night?’

‘I welcomed his presence.’

‘Right. Sure, you welcomed it. But for how long were you welcoming it?’

‘He came to me because he sensed that I needed him.’

‘You really didn’t need him.’

‘He taught me many things.’

‘Oh, like what?’ Luke’s tone is slightly more irritated now. ‘To not carry your weight properly? To lose your weapon? To not fix your injuries? To train alone? Great teaching, Ben.’

He doesn’t feel really sure of the best answer. At least he’s breathing normally now.

‘He taught me how to use the Force to ascend to greater heights of power, to fulfil my destiny.’

‘Your destiny  _as what_?’

‘As the heir to Lord Vader.’

‘Ugh,’ Luke says, irritably. ‘Kid, you’re not his heir. If anyone was, that was me. You’re Leia’s heir, or Han’s. Or mine. Or no one’s, maybe you’re just yourself.’

‘I have the same Darkness he had. He is reborn in me.’

 ‘You’re about as miserable as he was, that’s for sure.’

‘He was a great man.’

‘He was very unhappy,’ Luke says, patiently. ‘At the end, when he died. He took off his mask, and he was just a very screwed up person underneath.’

‘You think he should have kept house? Played dad? Been content with an irrelevant, meaningless life?’

‘N-o,’ Luke says, not rising to it. ‘He was very powerful. He should have done something with that. I’m just not sure he picked  _the right thing_ to do. And not the right thing by the Jedi, I don’t mean that. I mean the right thing for him. For his own happiness, his own fulfilment.’

‘This won’t work,’ Ben says flatly. ‘I see what you’re doing and it won’t work. There’s nothing left in me to save.’

Luke shakes his head.

‘You’re wrong,’ he says. ‘I thought that too, once upon a time. But now I see that about all of this, you’re completely wrong.’

He pauses, takes a breath. ‘I love you, Ben. I’m not going to fight with you. I’ll always help you. But you’re wrong about all of this. And I didn’t try to kill you. I know you tell yourself that story to make all of this fit together, but you know that what really happened was different.’

‘I saw you,’ he says, but his voice sounds weak, even to him.

‘I thought about it. You’re not the only person who’s ever wrestled with darkness. In that moment, I thought about it. And then I stopped. I regained my sanity, and I stopped.’

‘So you admit that you thought about it. You admit that it was a plan you had, to murder your own nephew. Some bearer of Light you are.’

‘Yes,’ Luke says simply. ‘For about two wild seconds, it was my plan. Which I then lived with for the next seven years of my life. I replayed those seconds over and over, every day for a long time. I didn’t think about anything else. In the end, the conclusion that I came to is that I stopped. And maybe the fact that I did is equally important to the fact that I had the impulse in the first place.’

‘Not to me.’

‘No,’ Luke agrees. ‘Probably not. So I won’t give you any more advice. If you want to keep living like this, if this is truly what you want, I’ll just have to live with it too.’

He doesn’t fall asleep again for a long time. He thinks about a lot of things. Darth Vader. Himself. The whole mess that he’s in.

 

+

‘Maybe we could do the Esthra?’ he says, the next morning. A meditation on Light, something he hasn’t done for a very long time. ‘If you want to?’

‘The Esthra?’ Luke repeats, surprised. ‘Really?’

‘I guess I feel in the mood for it.’

‘Ah,’ Luke says. ‘The mood for reflection on the love and compassion at the heart of the universe?’

‘Yes.’

‘Fine,’ his uncle says. ‘Remember how to start it?’

‘Yes.’

They do it, and it really is nothing like Ben remembered it being. It isn’t boring. It isn’t toxic or weak or sick.

It’s just about the way it feels when he wakes up from a nightmare and the first time in seven years, there’s someone in the room who cares. It feels like being loved, and wanted, and safe, and healthy and whole.

It feels like being okay.

Basically, he thinks, it’s just about that. It feels pretty good.

In the meditation, he can feel Luke’s presence, solid and warm. Full of light. He can feel his own lightness, too. The things in him that aren’t entirely tainted and stained. There aren’t many of them – but they’re there.

In meditation, Luke puts an arm around him. It’s okay that he does. He is, after all, his uncle. They are related to one another.

The Esthra makes you feel mushy and sentimental. It puts you entirely out of control.

 He starts to cry then, although he doesn’t know why. He can’t stop it. It’s all of this. His wrist, the meditation, the Jedi, the whole fucking mess. Why did he suggest this? What’s happening to him.

‘I don’t know what’s happening to me,’ he says, because it’s hard to lie, when your thoughts are solely focused on goodness and light, and when your dead uncle has an arm around you, and you’re feeling vulnerable and small and pathetic.

‘I know,’ Luke says. ‘You don’t have to know. Maybe it isn’t anything. Just a temporary problem.’

 

+

 ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he says to Luke, some days later. They talk more now. There seems to be a lot to catch up on, actually, now things are a bit more friendly.

He doesn’t exactly accept that his uncle didn’t try to kill him, but he sees that there is a somewhat alternative perspective on it. There is some universe in which it’s possible that even Luke Skywalker can have moments of madness, and can regret them.

So he talks to him.

 The topics of parents, Jedi, Temple, the Sith, and Kylo Ren are out, but other than that… there are still things to talk about.

Normal things. Even sometimes, briefly, things from before. Nothing difficult or dangerous, but the occasional moment.

 ‘Maybe I could actually … you know the Force choking thing?’

‘Uh huh.’ Luke’s tone never really varies.

‘Maybe I don’t exactly… it’s not the thing I prefer doing.’

‘Ah. And, so, you’re thinking…’

‘To focus more on other things.’

‘Well,’ Luke says. ‘Isn’t it rather inconvenient to give it up? As Supreme Leader and all.’

‘I could probably substitute it with an alternative.’

‘Such as?’

Ben tries, rather hesitantly. He knows what he is saying, he doesn’t want to over-state it, doesn’t want to give any doubts, but… ‘Not choking people.’

‘You could try that,’ Luke says, philosophically.

They don’t say anything more about it. It just is what it is.

 

+

 ‘I know you didn’t try to kill me,’ he says, one morning during training. They have been Force meditating, seeking clarity of vision – looking around at the world through the Force.

It’s still beautiful, and he can still do it. Everything seems much crisper, sharper and more real like this.

‘I’ve been thinking about it, and I don’t think you did.’

‘Ah,’ Luke says. ‘Well, that’s true. I didn’t.’

They stay in the meditation, and Luke’s form is bright with light, dazzling, radiant. It doesn’t hurt him to look at any more.

As for his own form. It’s not as bad as it could be.

‘But you could have handled it better.’

‘Yeah,’ Luke agrees. ‘You could certainly say that.’

They continue meditating, and in that form, he finds that he wants to – and therefore does – actually reach out a hand to touch Luke’s shoulder. He feels warm here, where corporality doesn’t matter, where his physical presence is of no consequence.

Luke receives the touch. He doesn’t bat it away, doesn’t flinch – even to be touched by a monster. He just lets him.

‘I’m sorry,’ Luke says. ‘I’m glad I got a chance to tell you that.’

Ben feels the truth of it. Things are clear and sharp. He can see what’s true and what isn’t.

‘I know,’ he says.

+

The graves actually make him quite queasy. They always have, but he’s just not noticed that much before. Now he’s starting to see things better, it’s increasingly difficult to not sense them, to not react to them.

He doesn’t really like mass graves. Clearly Luke doesn’t either, because whenever they pass, his form seems to flicker to a sallow sort of colour and he goes very quiet.

They never talk about it, but he starts avoiding going that way.

  
+

It’s all getting difficult. He doesn’t seem to enjoy killing people that much. Not as much as he used to. And he’s really bothered by the graves.

At some point, he can’t quite take it anymore. Avoidance isn’t working. He goes there, Luke’s presence trailing him because what else would happen but that. It’s very late at night, and no one’s there.

This place feels absolutely obscene. It is like being in the middle of a pool of blood, swimming in the stuff. The Force is charred and painful. He really doesn’t like it at all. It’s black and entrapping and slimy, everywhere over him. He can feel the way it was to kill them, their blood on his hands. He gags, almost dry heaving, and Luke, next to him, merely stands there.

‘What do you think we should do?’ he asks Luke, when he can speak again. ‘To make it better.’

Luke’s face is very taut.

‘Don’t you know?’ he says.

Ben shakes his head.

‘Are they all here?’ Luke asks. His tone is fractured. ‘Did you kill them all, or did other people help?’

‘Mostly me,’ Ben says. He feels ….

Something.

‘It does bother me a bit,’ he says. He feels slightly sick.

Luke just looks at him.

‘A lot,’ he amends. ‘It really…’

‘Ben,’ Luke says, patient and gentle. ‘You’ve got to grieve for them. It’s how you make it better.’

‘I don’t know how.’

‘Sure you do,’ Luke says. ‘What do you think you need to do?

‘Think about them?’

‘And?’

‘I don’t know.’

He’s aware that his breathing is rapid. He hopes he isn’t going to hyperventilate again, not here, not like this.

‘All right. Just try that then,’ his uncle says. ‘I’ll be with you.’

‘Don’t you hate me?’ Ben says. ‘Why don’t you hate me?’

Luke only shakes his head. ‘I’m sad about what you did. Angry, too. I’m sad about what’s been done to you and how you got here. I don’t hate you.’

‘I’m a monster,’ he says. ‘I killed all these people.’

‘I love you kid,’ Luke says. He sounds suddenly choked. ‘You’ve spent years here, like this. I thought you were dead, but all this time … Of course I don’t hate you.’

‘I did this,’ he says. He indicates, vaguely to the graves. ‘I did so many things…’

Luke doesn’t say anything.

‘I’m sorry,’ Ben says.

Nothing changes. The force doesn’t magically heal anything. There’s still a void in the centre of everything.

It’s just, only, that he can breathe a little easier. It feels a little bit less terrible. He and Luke just stand there, side by side.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says again.

 

+

 

One day, he notices that Hux – with whom he often fights in meetings – keeps eying his left, formerly broken wrist.

It’s almost imperceptible. But he has the distinct impression that Hux knows, or thinks he knows, that that wrist is vulnerable to attack.

Almost as if it was planned that way. To keep him on a leash, if the need arose.

Just to keep himself calm, Ben throws a couple of swords from that hand – when the occasion demands it. He looks straight at him as he does it.

This place is really not as interesting to him as it used to be.

+

 

They keep training, and Ben knows that his form is definitely improving to what might be almost peak.

 

It’s been nearly three months and he feels…  _different_. Stronger. He forgot the way that being a Jedi can make you feel strong. It’s nothing like Snoke’s strength. It has a whole other hue.

He’s less irritated, less tired. He can focus better, can see things more clearly. Can sense with the Force again, which is a miraculous gift. He can really _see_. He doesn’t know how long he lived without it and how he ever thought it was okay to have lost it.

Probably not having a broken wrist helps with everything else. His shoulder’s also much looser, more flexible. He’s moving easier on his left side, where Snoke dropped him particularly hard.

Even the marks and scars don’t twinge as badly. He doesn’t feel like burning things or smashing them up quite so much. He doesn’t have low-level chronic pain in his arm muscle from holding the light saber at the wrong angle.

He feels in general, really quite good.

Sometimes when they’re training, Luke looks really proud. Which he used to look at Temple, too, but now it’s different, somehow. It matters more.

He sleeps as well. He really sleeps.

+

 

One day, in meditation, something extraordinary happens. He senses the presence of his mother, Leia.

He hasn’t felt her presence in years. Decades. Not even at temple.

And yet, there she is. A warm summer day, the light breeze over a meadow.

It jolts him. She must feel something in return, because her presence flickers, suddenly sharp, bright, searching.

‘What’s that?’ Luke asks. Whatever he is, he doesn’t seem to be able to sense anyone except Ben.

‘Leia,’ he says. ‘I just thought I could see her.’

‘Ah,’ Luke says. ‘I wondered if that might happen.’

‘I don’t know what to do.’

‘Okay,’ Luke says. ‘So don’t do anything.’

He ignores that. He does actually reach out to her, just a fraction.

 _Hello_ , he thinks, awkwardly. The Force will translate that into some kind of feeling for her. Some gesture of openness, of dialogue.

It’s absurd and preposterous, and surely nothing she would be interested in hearing, but he isn’t really able to think of much better to say, after all of this.

He isn’t sure what else he wants to say except, possibly, you and I might be able to have a conversation. Some day. In some vague, improbable moment in which we might be able to think of something to say to each other.

There is a pause, as Luke continues meditating at his side. Nothing, just the flickers and eddies of power, of strength.

And then, suddenly, a great rush of everything he’s not expecting. Love, gratitude, relief, shock, joy, absolute and unconditional joy, pouring out, over him, into everything, into the whole room.  It almost throws him off balance. There’s forgiveness there, and a feeling – impossible – of welcome, of longing, of desire to be known, and to be seen, and to see.

Yes, yes, yes, it seems to be saying. Hello. Hi. Yes. Ben.

And then, it all fades out. It’s just a brief moment.

‘Hmm,’ Luke says. ‘Even I felt that.’

Ben shakes his head as if to clear it.

‘I’m the Supreme Leader,’ he says. ‘She should want me dead.’

Luke sighs.

‘You can be quite stupid at times,’ he says. ‘She’s your mother. I don’t think she’ll ever want you dead.’

+

  
‘Uncle?’ he says, one day, just as he wakes up after what was a surprisingly pleasant night of sleep, feeling limber and well-rested and calm.

 He’s started to call Luke ‘Uncle’ more often. After all, he is his uncle.

‘Yes?’

He hesitates, unsure if he should say it, but compelled to try anyway.

‘Thanks for helping me to fix my wrist. I think it helped a lot with my sleep.’

Luke smiles.

‘You’re my nephew,’ he says. ‘You think I want to watch you walking around with broken bones?’

‘Maybe you think I deserved it.’

‘I don’t think that at all,’ Luke says, calmly.  ‘I’m impressed you managed to control it for six years, but I think that was long enough. Don’t you?’

‘Possibly.’

‘Definitely,’ Luke says. He’s smiling. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be in meeting soon?’

He never comments on Kylo Ren’s business, such as it is. Luke is  _there_ , but his form is shadowy and vague when Ben’s around other people, when he’s working. He can just about tune him out – although it’s getting harder, in some ways.

This meeting is about the best strategy for extracting information from some political prisoners. The assumption is that Kylo Ren is the one who should be doing the extracting, which is in one way a reasonable assumption, but in another way, something he doesn’t really feel like is within his job description these days. He’s just not that interested.

‘I’m thinking I might not go,’ Ben says. ‘I’m sure they can manage without me.’

‘Ah,’ Luke says. ‘What are you planning to do instead?’

‘I feel like getting off the ship,’ he says.

‘Great,’ Luke says.

So he shuttles down to a nearby planet, somewhere quiet and green. The two of them just walk around. He feels calmer than he’s ever felt.

 

+

‘So. Not keen on information extraction?’ Luke asks.

‘Torture,’ Ben says. ‘You don’t have to call it something it isn’t.’

‘Right. Not so keen on torture?’

‘It has a purpose,’ Ben says, coolly. ‘I understand that. But in this case, I’m not sure it’s the best approach.’

‘Ah.’

He twitches slightly. Everything here on this planet is tranquil, but it won’t be long before he has to go back.

‘I actually thought I might just let them go,’ he says. ‘You know, release the prisoners. I’m sure it could look like an accident.’

‘Perhaps you could do that.’

His uncle is always so neutral. It’s starting to drive him a bit crazy. He wishes Luke would say something, anything, that is what he expects.

‘You’re not going to congratulate me on doing the right thing?’

Luke shrugs.

‘I can’t control what you do or why. I just want you to be happy, Ben. I’m past all of the other stuff.’

‘But you can’t  _like_  the things you see here.’

‘No,’ Luke says. ‘Not at all. They make me sick. But you have to decide what you want to do. I’m dead. I’m beyond it all.’

‘I think…’ he tries to collect his thoughts.  ‘I think I might be happier not… torturing people. I’ve started to find it increasingly less enjoyable.’

‘Then don’t do it,’ Luke says, simply.

‘I don’t like the way it feels,’ he says. ‘It hurts me too.’

‘Ah,’ Luke says.

‘I really hate it,’ Ben goes on. Now he’s saying it, it’s hard to stop. ‘I think maybe I really hate it.’

‘Okay.’

‘I think I might be a Jedi.’

‘Ah,’ Luke says again. He gives a trace of a smile. ‘Well. That’s okay with me.’

‘I don’t think I’m a very good Sith.’

‘You don’t seem to be the best,’ Luke agrees, neutrally. ‘Lack of choking. Lack of torture. Lack of murder. You’re not giving it your all.’

‘I don’t think this was my destiny after all.’

‘Probably not.’

‘I think I did everything wrong.’

Luke strokes his hair then, just gently, and he can actually feel his hand. It’s less ghostly, more like his uncle. He puts his arm around him.

‘I’m sorry I let you down, kid,’ he says. ‘You didn’t do everything wrong. I didn’t prepare you for Snoke. I didn’t prepare you by telling you the truth about Anakin, by helping you to understand what might happen.’

 ‘I regretted it as soon as I got here,’ Ben says. ‘I was so frightened.’

Luke keeps his arm around him.

‘Why didn’t you come back?’ he says. ‘We would have helped you.’

‘I thought I hated you and you hated me. I thought this was my destiny.’

‘We wouldn’t have hurt you. We might not have understood all of it, but we could have helped…’

‘I know,’ he says. ‘I know that now. But I didn’t then. I thought I was … ‘

‘You weren’t,’ Luke says, simply.  

‘I burned Temple. I killed all those people…’

‘You spent six years with a broken wrist,’ Luke says. ‘And god knows what else. You were tortured. Ben, if anyone had known, had seen what it was like here… we would have helped you.’

‘Why don’t you hate me? You should do. I tried to kill you. I killed Han.’

‘Yes,’ Luke says. ‘You did.’

‘I thought it would help,’ Ben says. ‘Thought if I did, I wouldn’t have any more doubts.’

‘And did it help?’

‘No.’

Luke stays gentle, kind. His uncle, the very best of him. ‘You’ll have to live with it,’ he says. ‘I don’t expect that’ll be easy. I don’t know the answer about how you’ll do that. But it’s more a question of what else you’re going to live with. How you’re going to live with it.’

‘I feel better when I train with you,’ Ben says. ‘It helps.’

‘Ben,’ Luke says. His tone is just the same as the one he used when he asked him to fix his wrist. ‘How about just going home?’

‘I don’t have a home.’

‘Yes you do,’ Luke says. ‘There’s Leia. There’s Rey. I need to be able to move on.’ He pauses. ‘I don’t think I can do that while you’re so alone. I don’t understand why I’m here. But I think it might be my job to help you.’

‘You are helping me.’

‘It’s time to go,’ Luke says, and his tone is so patient and kind that Ben feels, bizarrely, like crying.

He’s been in such a mess. All of this has been such a mess.

‘Let’s go home,’ Luke says.

Ben just nods.

‘I should release the prisoners first,’ he says. ‘Before…’

 

+

 

That night, he’s still there – he isn’t going to do anything rash, he wants to do things in the right way.

He and Luke haven’t talked about it much. It’s all actually, when you think about it, surprisingly clear.

He waits until the dead of night. Gets up, releases the prisoners, sees them on board a shuttle craft, gives them safe passage. Lets them thank him. Stuns a couple of guards on the way.

Goes to the control room and destroys what he can.

Then he leaves. He takes his own shuttle, the small black one. The things he needs – money, clothes, a spare saber. There’s nothing so important here for him.

It turns out that it all really is just as simple as flying away. The important part, the difficult and frightening part, is only what comes next.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
